Purpose: The current study sought to examine the relation of parental overprotection and perceived child vulnerability to parent-reported health-related quality of life in parents of children with cancer.
Methods: Parents (N = 89) of children who had been diagnosed with cancer completed measures of parental overprotection, perceived child vulnerability, and parent-proxy report of health-related quality of life.
Results: After controlling for theoretically relevant covariates, parental overprotection and perceived child vulnerability were both found to be significantly related to child health-related quality of life. Additional analyses revealed that perceived child vulnerability mediated the relationship between overprotective parenting behaviors and the child's health-related quality of life.
Conclusion: The findings highlight the need to assess for these discrete parenting variables in parents of children with cancer and to develop interventions to target parental perceptions of vulnerability.